by Bailey White
Staff Writer
A new City Council committee charged with keeping an eye on City spending makes its debut tonight.
The Council Audit Committee will work with the Council auditor’s office, which oversees the financial status of all City departments and independent agencies such as the JEA and Jacksonville Port Authority. It will provide a forum for the auditor’s office to report its findings and recommendations.
“I’m rather excited about it,” said Committee chair Faye Rustin. “What I like about the committee is that it’s another way for elected officials to hold the administration accountable and to serve as a checks-and-balance system.”
“The auditing office keeps track of the fiscal integrity of the different departments in the City,” said Art Shad, vice chair of the committee. “They produce wonderful reports of their findings, which include recommendations, and our job is going to be to read the reports and to take action where needed.”
While the Council previously dealt with the auditor’s office through a finance subcommittee, the newly formed, freestanding committee should allow more open lines of communication.
“We’ve always had a great rapport with the City Council,” said Auditor Richard Wallace. “But this will allow us to bubble up the financial status of the City to a specific committee that deals with audit issues, and to present our recommendations to them. This is also a separate forum for outside auditors to present an annual report to.”
The new committee also will relieve the Finance Committee of the extra burden of monitoring the auditor’s office.
“My concern was that the Finance Committee had a full plate,” said former Council member Alberta Hipps, who recognized the need for a separate audit committee during her last term in office. “The City is so big that in some ways it’s just not feasible to expect them to be an audit committee in addition to their other responsibilities. I have to commend [Council] President [Lad] Daniels because he was the person who spoke to it and embraced it, and I’m sure under his leadership it will be one of the real functioning standing committees.”
The committee will also make sure a high level of ethics is maintained during daily operations.
“I think we’ve always been considered a city with a high ethics code,” said Hipps. “This was something that could be put in place, not only to make the City work better, but also to work as a preventative measure in light of recent corporate situations like Enron.”
“Most big companies, as a result of Enron, have decided they needed a more direct line of communication from auditors to the board of directors,” said Wallace. “And this provides us with that direct communication line.”
In addition to Rustin and Shad, Council members Lynette Self, Mia Jones, Sharon Copeland, Warren Alvarez and Suzanne Jenkins will also sit on the committee.
Currently, the committee plans to meet every quarter.
“I envision that we’ll probably be a full standing committee at some point,” said Shad. “Budget updates come out quarterly, so for now, we’ve scheduled our meetings around those.
“We have six scheduled meetings right now,” said Rustin. “But it’s very possible we’ll need to add more.”
Last week, Rustin and Shad met with Wallace and other members of the auditor’s office to review the committee’s goals and objectives.
“I think it’s going to be very interesting,” she said, “especially with the new administration.”